The market's reputation for producing a volatile reaction to USDA March stocks and plantings report was well-maintained today. General Comments After a long period during which fresh inputs were limited, markets finally got what they were waiting for at noon (EDT) today – the highly anticipated USDA report on 1 March quarterly stocks and prospective plantings. However, the report did not quite show what many analysts expected it to. Quarterly corn stocks were more than 100 million bushels higher than anticipated. Prospective corn plantings dropped to 89.2 million acres, about 1.4 million less than 2014 corn acreage but more than many analysts expected. The combination of larger stocks and larger acreage than expected immediately put the c...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.